A PASSION FOR ANGLING - MIDWINTER MADNESS

  

For many of us river fishers, winter is our favourite season, especially if you are a roach or pike angler. And if you have access to a prime beat of the River Kennet as we did in the good old days before the ravages of predation and water abstraction, then you were in seventh heaven.

The year was 1992 and we were trying to complete our fifth film of our series, this one being about winter fishing, with big roach, chub, pike and grayling our quarry. We also wanted some truly cold and frosty weather so the river looked the part and luckily, all our dreams came true.

However, it was so cold on many days that the line kept freezing in the rod rings and the grayling were so lethargic that we could only catch them on the ledger with a single red maggot on a twenty hook. But eventually Bob skilfully winkled out a colourful two pounder by edging a float down a deeper swim called the ‘Wine Cellar’, so we had to try a bottle in celebration.

Suitably lubricated, our banter between friends became ever more outrageous, and because big roach are notoriously difficult to catch using a float in the crystal clear waters of the Kennet, Bob threw down the bold challenge that he would catch a three pound roach on the ledger before I could catch a two pounder on the float, the winner given a bottle of port.

Ridiculous really, but I was up early the next day to be at a favourite swim as dawn broke and trotting a single maggot on a tiny stick float, amazed myself by having a two pounder in the net on almost my first cast and not satisfied, even caught another one before Bob and Chris came down the bank after a leisurely breakfast. Triumphantly, I asked Bob what vintage he was going to buy me but he was undaunted and at dusk on that same day I was able to film him catching a roach on ledgered bread of just a whisker under three pounds.  Thrilled at this success, we called it a draw and gave each other a  bottle of port for our curry night, celebrating a great days fishing and filming in style. The next mornings early rise was rather painful!

Fishing was only part of the fun because we had rented a cabin alongside the river and to keep warm in the evenings we played frisbee in the dark. Firing across the river was the challenge because if it ended up in the ice fringed water it was the thrower who had to wade in to rescue it, a very cold punishment. 

This game developed into ‘killer frisbee’, the object being to hit each other, so Chris cheated by shining his car lights in my eyes and catching me with a throw fully in the temple. The stars in the sky weren’t the only ones I saw that night. 

I think it was part of Chris's plan to stop me getting up so early in the morning because on one memorable dawn we started filming so early that I thought I had nearly killed him. He was curled up unconscious in the car seat and I only just got him upright in time to shoot the sunrise scene I had in mind.

Chris was catching lots of splendid chub but it was Bob who was on a role for this film and amazed us all when catching not one big pike but two and they were both twenties, the best going 26lbs, an awesome brace that had probably fattened up on our beloved roach and chub!

We do hope you’ll enjoy this episode, it's certainly one of my favourites and as we continue to dream of fishing again, hopefully it will be for tench or carp when we can cast again, not winter. The Angling Trust are working hard on trying to get angling allowed as soon as possible, so please support them by joining ; they are our best and only bet to allow angling to recover and move forward.

I don't know about you, but I'm finding that when you’re unable to be out there, the mere thought of being by the waterside with a rod makes it ever more desirable. So stay patient, keep safe and keep smiling and if you want to buy the whole six part series so that you can enjoy going down memory lane, please visit our website and my wife Sue will pop it in the post pronto. http://www.passionforangling.info/order.html  

AVON ROACH

a perfect roach fisher's dawn

“There’s more to fishing than catching fish” … a cliché I know but never truer than when fishing with friends …

… and this year I’ve had my fill of friends catching more than me! Take Boxing Day for instance.

surely there's got to be a two pounder here 

I started before dawn, picked the swim where I was convinced there’d be a big roach waiting for me, got bored watching a float wandering around the slack water eddy and went off to do some proper trotting.

I’d convinced my mate Trevor Harrop that we’d catch a big roach, in spite of heavily coloured flood water with ice covered puddles after a heavy overnight frost - so he sensibly turned up after lunch, drinks Stuarts’ tea, talked the hind legs off all the donkeys in the field then at my suggestion, drops a bit of bread into the hot swim I had baited earlier and promptly pulls out a 2lb roach. Who needs enemies when you have friends like Trevor.

Trev with his jammy two pound roach

So my New Years Resolution is to put my friends in the worst swims with rubbish bait and then show them how it should be done. In truth, I was absolutely delighted for Trev. because as my wife Sue said, “he doesn’t often catch anything”!

Now lets stop the leg pulling and say how richly deserved that roach was – and if you doubt me, just have a look at Trev and Budgie’s Avon Roach Project Blog. You only just get an impression of how much work, dedication and sheer bloody mindedness goes into the success that they are achieving and we should all be eternally grateful that at least a few people are actually getting on and doing something to help provide us with some roach fishing in the future instead of just whingeing and suggesting it’s a waste of time. Just read on and be inspired - http://www.avonroachproject.blogspot.co.uk/

And while we are handing out the plaudits, lets not forget the support for the project from the EA or the work of several of us that were concerned at the dramatic decline of roach and the critical loss of many of our rivers’ much lauded balance of nature between predators and prey.

the predatory pike becomes the prey © Stewart Canham

Lots of writing and petitions by us and the Angling Trust actually won us some Government concessions on the laws governing cormorant controls. We can now more effectively protect our fisheries and hopefully, in time, our wildlife will recover from the tragedy of unsustainable predation. The campaign was a triumph but is only the start of our attempt to enhance wildlife.

cute and cuddly - no! © Jane Adams

With more fish in our rivers, the problems of widespread predation by otters will ease, for at present they are running wild, killing lots of birds, even grebes and several of the brood of swans shown below. They destroy fisheries and even raid people’s gardens like urban foxes.

the last of our garden's golden orfe

trying to explain to Ellie the problems our rivers are facing

I banged on about this to the BBC in a series of programmes about Britain’s wildlife and I was even more disappointed than most when almost all my concerns were edited out – again. Sadly it seems that the media just don’t want to accept the truth about some of the issues over our wildlife problems, especially if it involves our much loved, ‘playful’ otters.

one of Britain's favourite mammals © Stewart Canham

I’m very fond of otters, they are one of my favourite animals because I have spent years filming them for the BBC. I would hate to see them come to any harm, but when they are so hungry that they are having to eat minnows less than an inch long and twenty were killed recently on Dorset’s roads in just three months, you have to find solutions … one of which is to create better fish habitat on rivers and protect them from all the threats such as pollution. Otters have recovered but they need more to eat if the success is not to be short lived.

the River Stour otters at Blandford are still producing cubs

OK, rant over, now I want to celebrate a year out there with the wildlife and my friends, even those that catch more than me. Some readers might feel that the catching of fish is not in their best interests but without anglers to protect them and their homes, our world would be a poorer place. I love fish like I do birds and all we anglers do if we get lucky is get to touch and admire them, then carefully return them to live another day, just as BTO bird ringers do with our blackbirds and robins [and something I used to do as well]. By catching birds we learn a lot about their lives and survival and the same goes for catching fish. They are all wildlife and we need to discover more about the challenges they face in this rapidly changing world.

This post has gone on long enough so I’ll put this ‘out there’ and write another piece about my friends, fishing and wildlife in a little while ... so please watch this space.

I returned to Britford on Saturday - three roach, lots of dace and wildlife to admire - what a lovely day

OTTERS vs CORMORANTS

                      

           “Wildlife Film Maker Killed by Otter – from Sleep Deprivation”

28yrs old and a family treasure - killed by an otter in mid afternoon

I can believe the headline because I’m that victim. The time is 02.45 and the otter is just outside the window right now, eating the last of our golden orfe. I have tried to keep it away with a six foot fence and by lighting the pond, even shining a torch at the ‘playful’ little otter as it runs around our garden but every night this last week it has found a way in, keeping me awake in my futile attempts to protect our fish. It’s all over now, the last fish has just been eaten, I’m exhausted and the otter will go hungry.

just nine inches long - poor little fish

the children's pet fish

just orful - sorry - sick joke

a prize rudd left for dead

It is distressing and sad when fish that have grown up as our children’s pets are killed, especially when a healthy ecosystem is destroyed. The pond was a vibrant haven of life, native fish such as rudd breeding successfully, weed growth flourishing, the surface alive with dragonflies, damselflies and even mayflies, aquatic life flourishing, fed on by mallard ducklings and minnows dived on by kingfishers. Now it’s all gone and the situation is deeply disturbing.

home sweet home or otter heaven?

a wildlife haven

under siege last year

midnight feast

the remains of a once vibrant ecosystem - heartbreaking

The final act was when the otter absolutely trashed the place, ripping up lilies in order to eat the last few minnows. I feel sympathy for an otter that is so hungry it has to hunt minnows. I also realise that my losses are nothing compared to those that are trying to make a living running carp fisheries and farming fish. There are big problems out there and I naturally ask why?

chomping on a grayling c. Stewart Canham

It’s easy to suggest that the increase in the numbers of otters leading to competition for territory and food is a contributory factor and more than likely it is. For a more significant cause look no further than the cormorant, emptying the River Stour of silver fish so that this young otter just outside my window tonight has had to travel a mile from the river, over the A31, up a little stream across the fields and over a six foot fence just to look for something to eat.

an Anglers Mail report - the dangers are real

Adding to the problem is the 95% decline in eel numbers, a favourite food of otters. We can’t change the fact that otters are fish eaters and that they are hungry. We can only hope that the government changes the law regarding the right to protect our rivers and lakes from the ravages of the hordes of hungry cormorants.

as appearing in the RSPB's Birds Magazine

If we accept the scientific evidence that each of the 23,000 cormorants that travel from the continent each winter eat a pound of fish a day, then it is also easy to accept that removing 23,000 pounds of our native wildlife a day every day throughout the winter is surely un-sustainable, especially in the long term. It is already having a detrimental effect on our biodiversity.

Then we have the non-native signal crayfish destroying fish recruitment by eating their eggs, an Oxford University Study on the Thames calculating that there are 10,000 crays per half mile of river. Now that is simply depressing.

Red for danger c. Stewart Canham

one down, millions to go c. Ton Dopp

Worse still, it seems that most wildlife conservation organisations are either ignorant or are in denial that our rivers face serious problems and when I try to explain what is going on, they say I am wrong. If they had observed the declines that I have witnessed these past thirty years, they would be moved to tears like me. As I’ve said before, it takes ten years for a roach to grow to 2lbs and two minutes for a cormorant to eat it, so we’re running out of time – fast!

the king of fishers c. Charlie Hamilton James

down the hatch c. Roger Cresswell

Being a lover of all wildlife, I wrote to the RSPB’s Chief Executive, Mike Clarke. I have been a member for over fifty years and ran their Film Unit for five years but when I described what was happening out there and the loss of fish eating birds, [three local pairs of Great Crested Grebes for starters], he as good as told me I was lying. In fact, despite telling me so, he had no evidence that grebes weren’t in decline because when I checked with the British Trust for Ornithology they told me that there hasn’t been a breeding survey since 1975. I was disappointed by his dismissive attitude and alarmed that just because it’s got feathers, he’s prepared to invent facts to protect the cormorants’ reputation. I reminded him that there are lots of fish eating species out there and some might already be struggling through lack of prey.

big but thin as a rake, caught on a 10mm boilie while barbeling

predator eats predator

bitterns c. Val Smith

big bills but lovely birds c. Niall Benvie

Sadly, we have to accept that most wildlife enthusiasts aren’t even aware that fish life is wildlife and that it plays an important part in our freshwater ecosystems. It’s up to us anglers to join the conservationists, to change their attitudes, to educate them about life underwater … and the sooner we do so the better. As a contribution, the attached film attempts to explain some of the facts. I plan to do a lot more, but this is a start … and don’t knock me for suggesting that the return of the otter is a conservation success story with few parallels because it is. The otter is a problem because the freshwater environment is in trouble and they are hungry but you have to accept that most folk are excited if they see one and so am I, even in the garden! It’s a shame for all of us that because we have filled the countryside with carp, they’ve become the otters’ favourite food.

one of our big carp - pulled out of the pond into the stream

another night of killing

As many of you are aware, the thing that has upset a lot of anglers is the thoughtless release of large numbers of captive bred otters into an ecosystem that might not be able to support them, especially after the 95% decline in eels. There should be a law in place that allows Natural England to insist on an ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’ before any release to protect the balance of nature and the otters, because the increasing incidents of otters killing each other due to lack of space is alarming. Deaths on roads have increased a lot too. Releasing an apex predator into the wild should require a license. We should push for that, not seek to control their numbers and shoot ourselves in the foot. No one will condone the killing of otters, however valid it appears to be.

Otters are one of the UK’s most popular animals and my wife Sue suggests that I may be partially responsible because in 1982 I made the first ever film on wild otters for BBC1. It attracted an audience of a staggering 17.3 million and it’s ironic that they were so rare then that I had to travel all the way to Shetland to film them. Now one is outside in the garden, eating the last of our fish.

great animals but trouble for fish c. Stewart Canham

Everyone is claiming that no further releases are taking place but it seems clear that this is a lie. Now there is a report that otters are having re-productive problems due to hormone disrupting chemicals in the water. So maybe the much celebrated return of the otter is reaching a natural watershed? There are no easy answers!

PERCHING WITH CHRIS YATES

                        

It’s always a pleasure going fishing with my pal Chris because, despite what the conditions tell us, we are forever optimistic of a result … yes I know, ‘a worm on one end and a fool on the other’ … but last weekend we just had to get out. I’d been indoors editing some film and Chris locked in, writing his book for Collins on winter. We were both suffering from ‘cabin fever’ and needed to come up for air. Perch are now Chris’s favourite winter species and I find them easier to catch than big roach, so perch were our chosen quarry.

An afternoons fishing would take place on Dorset’s River Stour near our homes and the conditions were ‘challenging’, a rising river full of snow melt and salt washed off the roads. Water temp. was forty two degrees – not bad – but a full moon and bright sun didn’t help. At least we had a good selection of excuses ; we sometimes need lots of those!

Our two previous visits to the river had indeed ended in blanks, despite near perfect conditions. I had fished for both roach and perch on both sides of the river and never had a bite, though remarkably, fish rolling roach like in my swim turned out to be jack pike, cleaning their gills I suspect after feeding on the liquidised bread I was throwing in. No, they weren’t feeding on minnows, there were non there.

Chris did get one chance on each day, hooking a large perch, the first of which broke him on a snag, the second slipped the hook after a spirited fight, though just to prove he does occasionally catch perch, here’s ‘one he prepared earlier’, a two pounder but from a lake. The highlight of these attempts was an otter swimming downstream at dusk, so close to Chris that he could have tapped it on the head with his rod.

River Stour Otter - c. Stewart Canham

In the same spot last weekend, while brewing a refreshing  cup of Kelly Kettle tea I was asking Chris how to spell the Latin for ‘there’s always a chance’ … ‘casus ubique valet’ … and we fervently believed there was a chance, if only during the last hour of daylight. I had already tried two classic swims before Chris arrived, dangling an enticing lobworm below a Cralusso flat float with my pole, deep under the tangled branches of overhanging bushes.

Martin bowler and I had used the same technique during the filming of  “Catching the Impossible”, the result - perch of 4/6 and 5/4. We were told by Angling Times that, at the time the ‘impossible’ five was the largest ever taken from a river … since beaten of course, but when the monster swirled and gave us our first glimpse we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. So the technique is deadly, though not last Saturday, not even a hint of a bite. I did get a new species though, a wren perching on the pole, adding to previous ‘perchers’, robin, grey wagtail and several kingfishers, one of which fell off!

I moved down to join Chris among some ancient, overhanging willows and tried the worm dangling trick again but still no bites, not even an enquiry.

However, while trying to photograph Chris’s float I failed because it had been pulled under by … a well timed strike and nothing. Hook gone. His favourite float sank again during the magic hour. Surely this time it was a perch but again the hook was bitten off. Obviously a hungry jack pike. We caught nothing – nada – zilch.

When dusk had rendered our floats invisible the highlight of the day ghosted into view, a barn owl hunting over rough pasture on the opposite side of the river. Unremarkable perhaps, though it was the first time we had ever seen a barn owl along this stretch of river in over thirty years of fishing. It made our day.

Barn Owl - c. Stewart Canham

Desperate to even see a bite, I headed off to Sway Lakes early next day and promptly caught a 2/3 roach on my second cast, taken on a paternostered tail of a lob. It was all perch after that, twenty or so up to 1/12, mostly on float-fished maggot. My desire to see a bite was more than satisfied and catching a beautiful big roach like that on a cold day was such a pleasant surprise that it sums up the appeal of angling. It proves that there is always a chance.

That OMG moment

Two pounds three ounces of January silver

A good old days brace - c. Chris Yates

In the good old days you could catch a brace like this, my biggest roach from the stretch in Wimborne of 2/9 and a perch of 2/3, a picture taken by Chris on one of our  perching sessions. [It’s horrible quality because a mag. lost the original and this is taken off the pages of the article by Chris.] It’s really sad that so many of the fish have ‘disappeared’, our local fishery destroyed and the local tackle shop gone.

Why the fishing has been so bad on our local rivers recently is a complex issue which I’ll enlarge on in a future post. The stretch that Chris and I had blanked on was once one of the most famous fisheries for big roach in the country, perch too, but  in the last twenty years we’ve suffered the raids of thousands of cormorants from the continent and more recently, other ‘colonists’ from Europe who choose to eat their catch! When with Chris last Saturday, I found the freshly constructed anchor for fixed lines hidden in one of our favourite perch holes.

A best of 3/10 caught a long while back

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of these dramatic declines in our fish stocks but one thing you can do is join the Angling Trust. They are really getting to grips with the issues of the day and becoming a political force in the corridors of power, so please join. It costs very little - just a couple of bags of boillies – and the Trust is already achieving a lot and could do so much more if every angler supported it. So just join – you know it makes sense!

http://www.anglingtrust.net/    - and read what they’ve achieved already.